Exodus, Metallica, Megadeth, and Metal Church all played a now-legendary New Year's Eve show at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, CA to ring in 1986. Exodus guitarist Gary Holt recalls the show in an interview with Metal Hammer, saying Exodus stomped Metallica "into the dirt" and that James Hetfield joked after the show "that's the last time you guys'll ever support us."
"The scene was rad. You could go to a different club five nights a week and never see the same band twice. There wasn't thrash metal competition, cos in the beginning there was only us and Metallica – the first time I ever heard with them was when we played with them, and it felt like looking in a mirror. Later on, there was some competition. The bands were all friends, and we hung out together, but Exodus owned Ruthie's. Everybody was gunning for us, but nobody could take us."
"The last time we played a proper show with Metallica was a New Year's Eve show at Bill Graham's Civic, and we stomped them into the dirt. We were getting wasted after the show, and James was laughing and saying, 'Haha, that's the last time you guys'll ever support us.' And it was the last time we ever supported Metallica."
When asked "'no Exodus, no thrash scene. True?' Holt replies, 'Absolutely. I'll own that. We created the violent scene.'" It's worth noting that among Exodus' founding members in 1979 was Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, who left the group in 1983. So who knows – if Exodus never formed, would Hammett have gone on to join Metallica anyway? Or would the course of thrash (and music) have been drastically changed?
Check out the rest of the interview here.
